On carrying an identity card

I was no great fan of the idea of identity cards and said so.  

Some friends smiled and pointed out that any in store loyalty card probably carried more information on me, my habits and bank details than any official document while the Italian side of the family just couldn’t understand how anyone would object to a piece of paper which proved who you were.

And I suppose that is the point.  It is not my job to prove who I am, it is their job to prove I am not who I say I am.  Old fashioned I know and possibly unrealistic but it is what I firmly hold to.

Of course in time of war such niceties go out of the window, and I was reminded of this when I came across two family documents.  The first was my father’s Travel Identity Card issued in the May of 1940 which “together with the holder’s national registration identity card and ration book must be presented by the traveller to the Immigration Officer at the port.”

"Initially, the card had to be produced to a policeman on demand or alternatively within 2 days at a police station. Further regulations were also issued requiring notification of change of address, also for births so a card could be issued for the newborn, also surrendering of the card if the person dies.
In December provision was also made to make it possible to exchange an ordinary buff identity card for a green card with room for a photograph and description of the holder; the reason for this was to assist anyone who needed to provide better evidence of their identity where they did not possess any other acceptable document, for example if they required access to enter a protected area under the defence regulations.

Later in late May 1940, presumably as the danger of an invasion increased, instructions were issued that everyone over 16 must now sign and date the card and write their address on the right hand page of the card and also that the card must be carried at all times. In the case of under 16s, the parent or guardian had the responsibility of signing the card and entering the address; under 16s were instructed not to carry the card with them but instead follow advice given earlier of carrying a luggage label or card with them with their name, address and national registration identity number.
Initially, adult identity cards were buff, the same colour as children's cards, but in 1943 when registration and rationing were combined, a blue card was introduced and issued to all adults, replacing their previous cards. A new buff card for children was introduced at the same time but existing children's cards were not replaced apart from when a new card was necessary.

The Identity Card was finally abolished in February 1952, but the identity numbers were used within the National Health Service to give everyone an individual number. People who had a national identity number during the Second World War or just after still have the same number as their NHS identity today.*

Which brings me neatly to the second family document which was my own identity card, issued In October 1949; it was to run till October 1965.  And perfectly conveys that immediate post war world where much of what people had become used to during the national emergency persisted well in to peacetime.

Like all family documents it tells its own family story.  Here was my first address, followed by the homes my father bought at Kender Street and later Lausanne Road and in between a brief stay with my grandparents in Derby.  Each time we took up a new residence the card had to be produced at the local Registration Office and stamped.  And so I know that between the May and September of 1951 I was with my grandparents in Derby, and I know also it was just mother and I.

My father was away working at the job he loved all his adult life which was driving coaches for the tourist trade.  Before and after the war he worked for a firm called Glenton Tours who specialized in sight seeing holidays around Britain and later the Continent. And this meant that from the spring through the summer he was away arriving back for just one night between bringing one coach party home and setting off in the morning with another for trips which lasted between a week and fourteen days. It would in the 1950s take him across Europe, to places I only discovered in the last decade. 

So the pattern of our summers was set.  We decamped to Derby and I guess only when I began school did the long periods with my grandparents become just the six weeks of the summer holidays.  Now it has taken this long forgotten identity card to remind me of what we did.  So perhaps there is something in identity cards after all.  But on balance, for me, I am happy they vanished in 1952.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*http://www.1911census.org.uk/1939.htm